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NavSource Online:
Section Patrol Craft Photo Archive

Actus (SP 516)



Call sign:
Nan - Unit - Cast - Quack
Patrol Yacht:

  • Built in 1907 as Halawa by George Lawley and Sons, Neponset, MA for Raymond Hoagland
  • Sold in 1910 to George W. Childs Drexel of Radnor, PA and renamed Actus
  • Commissioned USS Actus (SP 516), 18 April 1917
  • Purchased by the Navy 26 May 1917
  • Decommissioned 8 July 1919
  • Struck from the Naval Register 17 July 1919
  • Transferred to the War Department 20 July 1920 for use as a Survey Vessel by the U.S. Army Engineer Corps at Savannah, GA
  • Fate unknown.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 99 t.
  • Length 120'
  • Beam 15'
  • Draft 5' 6"
  • Speed 16 kts.
  • Complement 23
  • Armament: Two 3-pounders
  • Propulsion: One Lawley boiler,two 250hp triple expansion steam engines, two shafts.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    Actus 50k Photographed prior to World War I. She is flying a pennant that appears to bear the word "Baryard."
    U.S. Navy photo NH 95887    		 Naval Historical Center
    Actus 75k Photographed while underway, prior to World War I
    U.S. Navy photo NH 95888
    Actus 99k In port, probably at Boston, Massachusetts, on 2 May 1917. At that time, she had not been formally purchased by the Navy, but was apparently already in commission
    U.S. Navy photo NH 100894
    Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships History: Soon after the United States entered World War I, Actus (SP-516) a yacht constructed in 1907 at Neponset, Mass., by George Lawley & Sons was taken over by the Navy from Mr. E. B. Dane; commissioned on 18 April 1917, Ens. H. A. D. Cameron, USNRF, in command; and, on 26 May 1917, over a month later, formally purchased by
    the Government.

    Assigned to the 1st Naval District, Actus spent the entire war patrolling Cape Cod Bay and the harbors of Boston and Plymouth. After the war ended in November of l918, she continued to serve the Navy at the Boston Navy Yard in some type of yard craft status. She also performed some unspecified service for the Naval Overseas Transportation Service office at Boston in May and June of 1919. She was decommissioned at Quincy, Mass., on 8 July 1919. A little over a year later, on 20 July 1920, she was transferred to the War Department. Presumably her name was struck from the Navy list at about the
    same time.
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